A question about food!

[theoldmiff]

Hi everyone. I have to confess I am somewhat of a lurker on here (always finding good advice and tips - thank you all!)
Got a bit of a poser (and need a rant). Appreciate thoughts from step parents and parents alike.
I have two dsc and one ds. The dsc's mother is quite interfering and controlling about a lot of things. Now, recently, she's turned her attention to food. I have known in the past for her to send massive bags of crisps, sweets and biscuits in the kids' suitcases whoever we take them away. Annoying, but whatever. Anyway, now she's routinely moaning about what we feed the kids. Most meals the kids get here are home cooked from scratch and we have loads of snacks on offer - fruit, yoghurt, cheese, bread, biscuits, Pom bears, fruit loaf, etc. A few weeks ago, she sent a ranty email to dh with a list of the only food the kids will eat (they won't eat the same meals at her house you understand - she gives them different food).
So, dss will eat frozen chicken satay, frozen burgers, chicken nuggets, chips and pizza, ready meal roast pork, toad in the hole and cottage pie (not fresh! Ha, he always does at our house!). Also will drink lemonade. Dsd will eat ready meal bolognaise, frozen fish, ready meal stew, ready meal roast chicken, chocolate spread on toast. Will drink diet coke.
Now, I am quite shocked that a nice middle class mum thinks it's ok to feed her kids that kind of food every day, but my question is, what do I do? I will not feed that kind of food to my ds, dh, nor will I eat it myself. Nor do i particularly want to feed it to my dsc, whom i love very much. But now the ex wife is virtually accusing us of starving dss and trying to withhold contact (it's a shared custody arrangement). It's very upsetting for me and dh, and now dss is starting to become manipulative about food, despite the fact he eats what we have in the house and never starves, but obviously would prefer pizza and lemonade. (dsd is old enough to see through this and loves what she eats here).
Help! What do I do? Stand firm, or buy them ready meals, etc, for them to eat while we eat the good stuff?
Thank you :-)

[passedgo]

I am not judging you, my advice to you was to talk to her more, that has happened and now things are changing. As a step parent you are in a difficult position but respect towards the children's mother is essential. What I am suggesting is, ASK her about how things are, stop making comments based on assumptions and read your own posts back objectively try to imagine your dscs reading them.

You might care more about food nutrition but that really is not the important thing here.

[Princessjonsie]

I have both sides. When my DS went to his dads he would feed him KFC or macdonalds . No breakfast and only one meal a day. He would come back starving . I would pack crisps, biscuits, cereal and send tins of beans and macaroni. I would say it was incase my ex did not have time to shop but at least I knew son had something to eat and make sure he had a good meal before going and had a meal when he returned my stepson however has a very restricted diet . He only eats chips, pizza , burger, sausage rolls and the cheapest noodles ( anything without taste). When he was smaller we insisted he are what we are but he hates it and even simple pasta was a challenge. In the end (he is now 21 and still eats the same diet) he shops for it and cooks his own when he comes. As he only came once in a while it didn't seem right to spoil the little time he had with his bad forcing him to eat food he didn't like. Also it made no difference cause the second he went back to his mum it was oven chips and turkey twizzlers so forcing healthy food when in our house had no effect apart from to make us miserable and him